Moon Eyes

Author Note: Let's see... thought I should update quickly here what with my long lag I had there. Hopefully this makes up for it. As for when the next chapter is coming... well I'm not really sure when. Hopefully before the weekend but don't hold me to it. ^^ Also I haven't really looked this through.. so any mistakes.. sorry guys.
Chapter Dedication:I choose.... you anonymous. I have no idea who you are but you reviewed so I dedicate this to you as a new reviewer! Hope to hear from you again!

Chapter: Left Standing

“Yamato-sempai quickly erect a barrier around the camp site, TenTen Hinata fall back quickly!!!” he ordered.

Time seemed to slow down as his mind calculated all the scenarios just as the man let the air out from his lungs and it came hurtling at them. He closed his eyes and braced himself for the slam of chakra.

“Brace yourselves!” He called out needlessly.

Yamato was able to get a wooden barrier up in time but it was nothing compared to the large amount of charged energy that slammed into it with a loud boom. The thick wood bent inward as if it was a thin piece of willow, before it snapped in half and wooden shard went flying. People cried out as they were hit, but Shikamaru was not going to wait to see who was injured, he had no time. As the energy dissipated he stood up straighter and glanced to the side to see all his friends ready to fight and he smirked.

“Kakashi I need you to use your eye and track movement for me. Hinata get in there and use gentle fist on the freakin’ creepy lizard guy, Shino get your swarm and distract the few stragglers to the left, TenTen get mean with mallet man.” He started barking orders like a pro.

Everyone nodded and went to complying to his orders, beside him Kakashi revealed his eye and the red and black swirled dangerously. TenTen ran towards the man who was currently puffing his chest up again, unfurling one of her scrolls to pull out a large club that was almost as large as the weapon of the enemy and swung it into his chest. The impact of it broke bone and the large man’s blood poured out from his mouth, but before he could even recover TenTen was leaping into the air with an axe the size of her and slammed it into his face. Blood and gore went flying away from the impact area and TenTen didn’t bother stopping, turned, and quickly jumped in to help Shino.

Shikamaru always trusted TenTen to get the job done and watched satisfied as the body fell to the ground with a boom that shook the earth slightly. He glanced to the left of him and caught Ino’s stare, he wasn’t really wanting to send her in, god only knew what she would see if she entered somebody’s mind but she seemed willing to what it took. He sighed, troublesome Choji would be so pissed if he knew what he was about to do.

“Ino, I need you to get a hold of the two creeping up on Shino.” He stated.

She nodded with a grim smile and turned her attention on the two he’d spoken of. He caught her body as it went limp and carefully laid her on the cold ground. He frowned when she spasmed but when nothing seemed to really happen and one of the men turned towards his partner and begun attacking he figured all was well enough.

“Kakashi, what are the movements like?”

“Unpredictable, animal in nature.”

“I figured that’s what it would be.”

“Also I think you should be aware that they have no chakra signature until the moment of attack.”

Shikamaru’s brow rose, and he stared at Kakashi like he’d grown a second head.

“It’s true. I find it to be strange myself.”

Shikamaru looked back at the fight, “yes. This makes things far more difficult but also explains many things I’ve been thinking about.”

“Hm.”

Hinata’s hands flew through the movements of her gentle fist slamming every chakra point she knew and then a few points just to cause pain. Wrist, forearm, elbow, two points on upper arm, juncture of shoulder to chest, neck on both sides, left shoulder juncture, two points on upper arm elbow, forearm, wrist. Her hand flew up to the man’s head and slammed to fingers to his third eye point, before her eyes focused on his chest where she would land the final blow and but his heart from the rest of his body. As her palm went flat against his chest she looked up to his face to see the man smile and his lips move, while blood began to drip out, to say thank you with no sound.

The lizard man fell to his knees before falling forward to the ground, and Hinata only took a quick moment to pray for his spirit. She didn’t have time to think about what had just happened, and she turned swallowing the moment of pain that washed over her. Pale eyes widened as another large man came out of the forest, this time carrying a large sword that widened as if lengthened. Said enemy rose it to attack Shino who was busy exchanging blows with a different enemy. In normal circumstances they wouldn’t attack if one of their own could get hurt but this was not a normal circumstance.

She took off running, she was not going to loose another member of her team. It didn’t matter that they were no longer a team, it didn’t matter that they hadn’t had a mission together in a couple years. What mattered was Shino would not die today on her watch. Her eyes narrowed and she felt a strange heat burn in her chest and realized dimly that it was anger. Fisting her hand she slammed it in between the enemy’s shoulder blades the man dropping his own sword.

His arms were limp now, but he swung himself fast enough to have his arms swinging around like whips. She leapt out of range only to come at him again to slam her fist into his gut, as she couldn’t move fast enough to reach his heart, and the man groaned in pain. Using that moment to slam fingers into his hip points the man fell to the ground when his legs gave out. As he fell she fisted both of her hands and threw them against the middle of his chest where his heart was and was satisfied to watch the heart shred from her chakra.

Shino’s bugs came up behind the man he was fighting and attacked, the man cried out as the bugs bit into his flesh and slowly ate away all his chakra until he fell to the ground lifeless. Looking over his shoulder at Hinata he smiled at her, and knew she could tell as she smiled back. Suddenly he had an arm full of Hinata as she hugged him.

“I almost lost you.” She whispered.

He was shocked at first, she had never said something like that about him before, but then he hugged her back needing that kind of comfort. The two parted and looked around to simply see all the death. The battle was over, for now, and it was time to regroup.

Shikamaru sighed in relief as Ino came back to herself, she was a little shaken and pale but she seemed well enough. He’d never seen her take over more than one person at a time but she had and they’d killed one another easily enough. The blond sat up, rolled over, and vomited onto the ground.

“I’m sorry Ino.”

“Don’t be troublesome Shika, I knew what could happen if I went in there.” Ino replied spitting the acidic taste from her mouth that remained.

“What was it like?”

“A swirling mass of emotion and images I’d rather never remember.” She whispered and he nodded.

Standing and waving off others from seeing if she was alright he turned to the group and watched as some civilians slowly immerged from their tents. He looked them all over and remembered the grim on him with a grimace. He didn’t do filthy, being filthy caused more problems than solved so he had always kept clean. Everyone was filthy, and tired, a good bath would help them reenergize.

Opening his coat he reached in and pulled out a map from an inner pocket and unfolded it enough to see where they were. His eyes trailed over the line and land marks to the point he was considering. It was a little of coarse from where he’d told Sai they’d be traveling, but he had confidence that the man could find them easily enough. Looking back up he came into contact with several eyes waiting for what he had to say.

“It’s time we pack up and moved a little towards the west.”

“Is there a reason for this?” Iruka asked coming to stand amongst the nin group.

“Yes, all of you smell.” He replied opening up his coat and taking a sniff, “and frankly so do I.”

The group chuckled, even though they were exhausted.

“Where’s Lee?” TenTen asked looking around for the green monster.

Shikamaru frowned, that was not a good sign. The man was wearing bright orange, you couldn’t loose someone wearing clothing like that. Everyone looked around and saw nothing orange and panic started to rise. Shikamaru realized he’d never given an order to Lee to move on an enemy, the reason for that was he hadn’t see him since the enemy’s first wind attack. It hadn’t hit him then, when it normally would have, because he’d been concerned about Ino specifically.

“Shit,” he cursed, this time Iruka allowed it.

“Pan out and look for him amongst the fallen, if he’s not there good, but keep looking.” Kakashi called out.

“Damn it I should have realized it sooner.”

Iruka placed a hand on his shoulder, “Do not beat yourself up over this.”

“No, this is all I can do any more with the moon eyes hanging over us like a fuckin’ death sentence. I can’t use my bloodline limit, which leaves me with just my mind and I was to busy making sure Ino was alright when I should have been focusing on the whole.” He growled.

Iruka frowned at the curse, but more for the words coming out of Shikamaru’s mouth. He had worried that his former student felt useless without his jutsu, but he was hoping the man had taken it like he took most things and had gone with the flow. Apparently his first assumption was correct and Shikamaru was having a hard time excepting that he couldn’t fight like the rest of them. Iruka had chosen his fate, but Shikamaru hadn’t and the man was obviously not okay with any of it.

“Shikamaru, this is not your fault. This is Lee we’re talking about, he might have just gone off when seeing something. You never do know.” Iruka comforted.

Shikamaru gave an exasperated sigh and placed his left hand on his forehead. “You’re right Iruka-sensei. Thanks.”

Iruka nodded and watched as the man jogged after his friends. Turning to look at the villagers surrounding him he smiled.

“Is everything alright Iruka?” One asked.

“Yes, everything is alright. One of our more livelier nins decided to run off and fight bad guys alone.” He joked, it worked the group chuckled, but felt less sure of himself than he let on.

Kakashi came up beside him and looked at him with his one eye knowingly, before his eye focused on the group, “Alright we’re going to be moving out. Apparently there is a natural hot spring close to here. I don’t know about the rest of you but I for one need a bath.”

The group nodded excitedly and the kids, who normally would want nothing to do with cleaning themselves, nodded as well.

“Since the others are scouting the area it’s up to you to break camp. I’ll leave you to, as I need to go scout myself.” Kakashi said good naturedly before being gone in a poof.

Clones, sometimes Iruka was surprised as Kakashi’s clones were always so life like. Very precise chakra control for things like that. Iruka turned to look down at a young girl that had pulled on his pants leg. The blond blue eyes child looked as if she were concerned and he smiled at her softly.

“Did you need something?”

“Where is Sai?” She asked quietly looking away from him.

A villager knew Sai? That was strange, Sai was very secretive. “You know of him?”

She nodded and kept her face to the ground, he wanted to reach out but he thought better of it. He’d seen this girl a few times, and she stuck close to the other women. He frowned at the thought, such a shame that such a young child had been victimized like that.

“He had to make sure other people were safe.”

“He is saving more people?”

“Yes.”

“Chloe! There you are, I apologize Iruka-san.” The woman said while taking the child into her embrace.

“No trouble Li,” He replied.

How interesting, Sai was starting to gather the faith of the people behind him. It was strange to think about it as the Sai he knew was so removed from his own feelings that he didn’t connect well with others. Naruto had taken the man under his wing, and shortly after Sakura had as well, and the new team they made along with Tenzou had meshed rather well. When in the company of other Sai didn’t speak all that much, and when he did you could tell he was at a loss as what to say. When he was with his team though, they all spoke frank with one another. Something they had learned from Sai to do, and Sai had learned how to allow compassion to enter his being.

Iruka smiled, it was good to see his students grow and learn, it was good to see Sai grown and learn as well. He glanced at the place Sai had ran off towards with Akamaru and found himself concerned. He truly hoped that he would be safe and would bring with him more help.

******

When the fight had broken out, and orders were being barked while the large man had expanded his chest, he was sure he’d heard a woman’s voice cry out no. Not being one to stand around with inaction, the moment the wind had ceased he’d jumped away and in the direction he was sure the sound had come from. He knew he should probably not have gone alone, or at the very least told someone, but before any of that came to mind he’d jumped into action. It was just the kind of man he was.

Lee’s sandal feet landed on the dry ground quietly and he stayed in his crouched position and listened intently for any indication that the woman was still alive. Again he heard it and it was much closer than before. Taking off in the direction he’d heard it he came to a small clearing with a red headed woman on the ground her clothes ripped and torn and tears in her eyes. Lee could tell she was exhausted, but she was still trying to fight off her attacker, one of them was already dead on the ground but the larger one, the one who looked like some sort of rock dragon was still after her.

Not taking a moment longer he jumped out his fist in front of him and punched the rock surface. Hoping back from the beast he shook out his hand, apparently the man was as rock solid as he appeared. No matter! He would defeat the evil in front of him as he had every other time before and triumph because that was what the good guys did. With a smile he clenched his fist and opened one of his gates. It was refreshing, and painful at the same time as the power surged over his nerve endings. Focusing on the monster in front of him he waited for it to charge him, and as it did he disappeared from sight appearing behind it and the bottom of his foot came swinging into it’s back. The beast went flying off towards the left right over the woman still on the ground.

She looked up to see the blurry image of Juugo go flying over her and scrambled to get her glasses back on her face. It was not an easy feat to send that mass of weight moving in any direction let alone have it go sailing threw the air. The man fell against a tree splitting it the log falling down on top of him. Carefully she rose to her feet, picking up her glasses and placed them on her nose.

Turning she blinked at the man and his ‘unique’ attire. He smiled brightly at her as if he knew exactly who she was and they’d been friends for years. When she realized he was from leaf relief fell over her and she smiled back. She’d made it back, or at least had found leaf nin. She was so exhausted, cold, hungry, dirty she had started to think she would never find them.

“He’d not dead yet, he’s in his third stage, I assume you’ve dealt with things of this nature before.” She mentioned looking back over at the fallen tree as it creaked and started to move.

“Yes, once Kimmimaru was his name. I don’t remember a lot of that fight, but I do remember that it was hard to kill him.” He replied.

“Best way to kill Juugo is snap his neck. It’s going to take a lot of brut force.” She told him.

“I do believe there is probably other ways to kill him.” Lee answered, “but he is a friend of yours. I will not disrespect your memory of the man and will allow him a good and painless death.”

She blinked at him from behind her spectacles and felt tears prickle at her eyes for a reason she didn’t really want to think about at that time, “thank you.”

Lee nodded at her and focused on opening two more gates, if it would take brute force then he needed all the strength he could use, but with in reason. He did not feel like being cripple for months on end again. The man rose from the ground and charged him, Lee easily evaded the attack and came down on him from up above his heel slamming onto the back of the neck and spine severing the connection and breaking a few bones in the process.

Slowly the man returned to his normal features and as he fell the red headed woman caught him. Hugging him tightly to her she slid to her knees, and pulled out a kunai from the back of her boot. Juugo was still alive, and could do damage still if she left him alive. She didn’t want to kill him, he was such a kind man, and had saved her, before he had gone crazy, from being raped.

“Good bye Juugo, may you find your peace now.” She whispered into his ear before pushing the weapon up into his chest.

The warm blood dripped down onto her hand and she swallowed her sob, out of her team she had liked him best. Granted she’d been obsessed with Sasuke, but even she could concede he was something of a cold man. Juugo though, this man had been a very wonderful one indeed. Carefully she lowered him to the ground and closed his lifeless eyes. Suddenly all her body’s ailments surfaced once more and she became aware of her limit. Looking up at the man dressed in green and bright orange she tried to speak but passed out before she could even mutter one more syllable.

Lee picked her up from the ground, after burying her friend, and walked back towards the place camp was. When he heard voices he stopped and waited for them to land in front of him. TenTen was the first to appear and she looked rather pissed at him.

“Are you kidding me Lee? You’ve gotten all of us worked up over some random woman?”

“She needed rescuing.” Lee replied as if it answered everything.

TenTen sighed and rolled her eyes, before punching his shoulder the woman on his back wasn’t resting her head upon. Lee gave his team mate a toothy grin, they both knew he would never leave someone helpless if he could manage it.

“Who is she?”

“Dunno.”

Shikamaru landed in front of them and gave the red head a cursory look over and then frowned.

“Aw shit, this makes everything so bothersome.” He stated.

“You know her?” Lee asked.

“Not personally. But she fit’s the description Sakura gave me once. Our medic is going to be right pissed when she wakes up to find this woman amongst us.” The man replied with a groan.

“She’s not so bad. Misguided I bet.” Lee announced.

The two looked at him with resignation, they weren’t going to be able to convince him that the woman had to go. With sighs, and Lee looking at them curiously they turned and made their way back to camp.

“We’re moving out. We need to get a little bit cleaned up.” Shikamaru informed him.

“Good good nothing like warm or cold water to wake you up and bring the youthful step back to you.”

TenTen groaned, “Lee…”

“It is true TenTen, Gai-sensei swears by it. I am sure that he would not lie about something so vital.”

“Lee, Gai-sensei was, is bonkers.” TenTen whined.

Lee’s eyes grew wide and he gasped with indignation, “TenTen how could you say such a thing about that great man?”

“Cuz it’s true.” She mumbled.

Shikamaru felt his lips twitch up at the corners and before he realized it he was laughing. Soon after TenTen joined in, and all though Lee wasn’t sure why they were laughing he laughed as well happy to see their spirits brighten. Thank the deities for the fact that Lee would never change, Shikamaru thought and looked over to see TenTen agreed.

~TBC~

End Note:

weskerism: How's that for bringing on the kick ass fight scene. And don't worry I will work my mojo on Sakura. I'm working it on all the gals of Naruto. I figure they need to have the spot light on them occasionally. ^^
anonymous: I will have to think about that one. If it doesn't end up here then keepa look out for a special fic dedicated just for you. ^^
Readers!!: Still open to hear what pairings you want to see. Also looking for ideas for pwp crack pairings. You ever want to see two random characters get it on that you usually wouldn't see? Well let me know. The pairings that get the most votes will be writen first. Then I'll work my way through the list. Later guys!!